by John Lutz
Joan and Foster Oaks were walking along the catwalk now, holding hands.
“Where’s the shutter button on this thing?” Harold asked.
“Goddamn it, Harold!”
But Harold was smiling.
He passed the digital camera to Sal, who went to SLIDESHOW and clicked on it.
Harold had managed to get photographs of Joan Plunket and Foster Oaks that were almost pornographic.
Harold for you.
5
Bonnie realized she was walking too fast in this heat. Perspiration had soaked into her clothes and lay as a sheen on her arms.
I must not smell so good. Hope he doesn’t notice.
She slowed down and relaxed somewhat, thinking about Rob Masters. She’d met him two weeks ago at Grounds for Everything, a neighborhood coffee shop. They’d fallen into easy conversation. He was a sales rep for a line of furniture. Bonnie was a sales clerk in a bridal shop. Gowns ’n’ Gifts. Small world, both of them being in sales.
“I didn’t think that many people still went in for large traditional weddings,” he’d said, over his vanilla latte.
“You’d be surprised. There’s a big demand for gowns and bridesmaid dresses.”
“Not to mention gifts.” He smiled. That was one of the things she liked most about him, his smile. It held nothing back, and was like a glimpse of something beautiful inside him. He was just . . . normal in the looks department, but you could trust a man who smiled like that.
Or did it mean he was a terrific con man?
After all, he was a salesman.
He’d made a sale with Bonnie, because she suddenly wanted to see him, to be with him. A whim. She followed whims a lot. They seemed to work out for her.
She entered Grounds, pleased to find that the coffee shop was coolly air conditioned. Maybe her clothes, her arms, would dry in the cooler air that wafted like a blessing across the floor and eddied about her ankles.
And there he was, sitting at a booth near the window. He didn’t see her right away, and she found herself reassessing him. His looks grew on you. Sure, he wasn’t classically handsome, but he was a pleasant-featured man, seemingly at ease with himself and the world. Not a head-turner, but worth a second look. He was leaning back in the padded booth, his legs extended and crossed at the ankles.
“The bridal gown beauty,” he said, noticing her approach.
She nodded to him, smiling, and ordered a chocolate latte.
Don’t throw yourself at him.
She didn’t look his way again until she’d gotten her latte and moved toward the booth.
“You keep marrying them,” he said, “and I’ll sell them furniture.” He sipped his latte and moved his legs out of the way so she could sit opposite him. “I often wondered, once the wedding and all the hoopla is over, what do women do with those bridal gowns?”
Bonnie shrugged. “Mostly they put them in a box with white tissue paper and seldom look at them again. Sometimes they give them to their daughters to wear at their weddings.”
Rob smiled. “Kinda nice.”
“I think so.”
“None of my business, but were you ever . . .”
She knew what he meant and was pleased. She’d wanted him to wonder. Wanted to get it out in the open.
“Married?” she said.
The smile.
“Once,” she said. “When I was nineteen. It lasted four months. It was—”
“You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, no, it’s okay. It was a mistake, is all. For both of us. We knew it and parted before any more damage was done.”
“Damage being?”
“Kids. Neither one of us would have made a good parent.”
“Really?” He was looking directly at her, into her. “I admire your honesty.”
“I have a temper,” she said.
Now he was interested. “No kidding?”
“Yeah. But it passes quickly. Like a summer storm. Still, I know I hurt people. I’d especially hurt a sensitive kid.”
“Hurt physically, you mean?”
“No, I didn’t mean that. But, to be honest, I guess it might be possible.” She revolved her ceramic mug on its coaster. “Not everyone’s made for the homey, domestic life.”
“Yeah, that’s true. So what are you made for?”
“I’m still looking, I guess. Right now, I just want to keep my job, pay my bills, and enjoy life.” She gave him what she thought was her sultry look. “I’m still working on that last part.”
He took a slow sip of coffee and regarded her carefully. They both knew the game. She’d given him his opening.
But all he said was, “This is damned good coffee.”
She had other cards to play.
“I’ve got to admit I’m worried about something.” She glanced around her.
“Getting in the way of the fun part?”
“I’ll say. There’s this guy who’s been . . . well, stalking me.”
He looked at her as if trying to bring her into focus. “You mean like he wants to do you harm?”
“I think so. I mean, I don’t know what I think. But I look behind me, and there he is.”
“You’re a beautiful woman. You must be used to men following you.”
“Stalking.”
“Okay, that too. Aren’t those guys usually harmless?”
“Usually, I’m sure. But I know he’s giving me the willies.”
“Maybe it’s the drought and all this heat, making people behave in weird ways.”
“This guy isn’t a product of the drought.”
“You could call the cops.”
“Let’s not kid ourselves.”
“Yeah, they’ve got other things to do, supported by more evidence.”
“What you said about the heat . . . maybe it makes sense. I read in the paper that crimes-against-persons statistics are higher. People do get crazy ideas in the heat. Tempers flare. Imaginations run wild.”
He looked into his latte, looked up at her, back into his coffee. “Listen, if it’d make you feel any safer, I could walk you home, go in and look over your apartment, make sure the boogie man isn’t there.”
“Oh, that’s too much trouble!”
“Not at all. You mentioned you live in the neighborhood.”
“Four blocks away.”
He shrugged. “Not much of a hike, even in this weather.”
“No,” she said, smiling at him in relief she didn’t have to feign, “I guess it isn’t.” She shivered. Now her arms had goose bumps.
“Hey, you really are scared.”
He thought they’d been playing a game. Well, they had been. Still were. Only the stakes might be higher than she imagined. The man in the blue cap wasn’t her imagination.
Rob finished his latte and set the tall mug aside. “You ready to go?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said.
Not quite, he thought. This would be a simple reconnaissance visit, then a good-night trust me kiss and a date for tomorrow night. There were preparations to make. A future and an end to plan.
Considerations as he stroked himself.
Matters to ponder.
No rush.
6
Two weeks later
After a good dinner with wine at an Italian restaurant.
Drinks.
Comfortable conversation, commiserations, confidences.
Drinks.
The now familiar walk to her apartment.
“There’s some wine in the fridge,” Bonnie said. “You wanna get it while I change?”
“White or red?” Rob asked. He placed his scuffed leather briefcase alongside the sofa and loosened his tie.
“Whatever’s in there.”
Bonnie walked into the bedroom and shut the door, then crossed the hall to the bathroom nude, glancing into the living room to see Rob’s stocking feet. Glad he’s making himself comfortable.
“With you soon,” she said, and
went into the bathroom.
She took a quick shower, not waiting for the water to get warm enough. Shivering, she dried herself off. She’d kept her hair relatively dry, so it still looked good.
Standing before the full-length mirror that was mounted on the back of the bathroom door, she tried to decide: Nothing? Or something?
Something was always sexier, she decided. Besides, it was something to remove. She opened the bedroom door a crack, still could see the black socks in the living room, and darted nude across the hall into the bedroom.
Bonnie slipped her diaphanous pink negligee over her head, fluffed up her hair, then put on her slippers with the built up heels that made her calves look sexy.
Rob was on the sofa, fully dressed except for his shoes. He was sipping a glass of white wine. Another, full glass was before him on the coffee table. When he saw her, he appeared shocked, then he smiled.
“I guess there’s no point in wasting time,” he said. He stood up. “You have some wine. I’ll take a quick shower, too, and then I’ll be back.”
“Gotta turn the hot water on high,” she said after him, as he went down the hall toward the bedroom and bath.
He mumbled something indecipherable to let her know he’d heard.
Bonnie sipped some Chablis, noting that it didn’t taste bad, considering how long it had lived in the refrigerator.
When the shower stopped hissing, she had to wait only a few minutes before Rob came back into the living room. He was completely nude, still with droplets from the shower on his shoulders. She was surprised by his physique, which appeared much more muscular without his clothes. Muscle and tendon played whenever he moved.
She remarked that he, too, didn’t believe in wasting time.
Only it didn’t come out that way. Instead she’d uttered a string of slurred, incomprehensible words.
Alarmed, she tried again.
Same result.
Beneath her puzzlement, fear took root. There was something in a far part of her mind she didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to face.
Rob seemed unsurprised by her inability to communicate.
She tried again and could not make sense.
The bastard! The sneaky bastard!
“You put something in my wine,” she said, though it didn’t sound like that at all.
He paid no attention to her. Wouldn’t have understood her, anyway. He was bending over, picking up his brown leather briefcase. Inanely, she wondered if he was going to try to talk her into buying furniture. If he even sold furniture. There was no reason to think he hadn’t lied to her about that, too.
My God! Like a rag doll!
She tried to move but could only wriggle enough so that she slumped down farther into the sofa cushions.
Rob opened the briefcase and withdrew a roll of gray duct tape. He held it up and smiled down at her. “Good for so many things,” he said.
She tried to tell him to go to hell but made only a gurgling sound.
Damn him!
If she couldn’t speak, maybe she could scream.
She opened her mouth to try, and he ripped off a rectangle of tape and slapped it over her half-open mouth.
“You almost figured that out in time,” he said. Then he shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been very loud, anyway. Be a good girl and maybe later I’ll let you try again.”
Bonnie attempted to rise from the sofa. Rob reached for her as if to help her stand. Instead he forced her upper body downward so she was in a seated position with her bent legs splayed out. Gripping the back of her neck and pushing her upper body down as far as it would go, he sat on her back to keep her down. She heard more tape being ripped off the roll, then felt it being wound around her wrists and ankles, fastening them together so she remained in her awkward, splay-legged, bent position, her bare back exposed.
He stood up, stretched, then looked around. Walking from window to window, he made sure again that all the blinds were closed.
Obsessive-compulsive, Bonnie thought through her agony and terror. Surely, while she was in the shower, he’d already made sure everything was sealed off from the outside world. She told herself she should have tried to understand him before now. If she’d applied her pop psychology to him instead of looking for what she so desperately wanted to see, she might have noticed something unusual about him.
Or not. He was so damned usual. He worked so hard at it. She could see that now, how difficult it must be for him to make normal look so effortless when he harbored such monstrous thoughts.
He lifted her from the sofa and placed her gently on the floor on her back so she was bound in her curled-forward position in the middle of the living room. The harsh carpet fibers made her back itch terribly.
She strained her neck to look to the side rather than at the limited view between her hands and bare feet. He was reaching again into his briefcase.
Bag of tricks . . .
He removed from the briefcase a plain yellow envelope, opened it, and slid out some eight-by-ten photographs.
He squatted low so he wouldn’t have to bend over to show them to her.
They were vivid. They were in color. They were photos of a nude woman on her back, bound with tape the same way Bonnie was bound. Her stomach had been laid open in a wide U-shaped cut beneath her naval, arcing down low toward the pubis. Some of the woman’s internal organs had been removed and were lying on the floor near her. Jutting from her exposed intestines was what looked like a plastic statuette of the Statue of Liberty.
Bonnie did everything she could to keep from vomiting, knowing she’d choke to death behind the firmly fastened rectangle of duct tape.
One by one he displayed the photos in front of her so she could see them. He didn’t bother looking at them closely himself. He was interested in her.
“I want you to know what’s happening,” he said. “So we’ll wait a while longer while the sedative wears off before we get truly serious. In the meantime . . .”
He reached into the briefcase and withdrew a coiled leather whip.
The pain began.
7
“Worked at a place called Gowns ’n’ Gifts, over near Broadway,” Renz said. “She was the ideal employee, never late even a minute. But she didn’t show up for work this morning, so they sent somebody around, and this is what they found.”
“This” was Bonnie Anderson, nude and lying on her back with her legs splayed, her abdomen laid open with a single curving slash. The wound was ragged, and the large flap of skin peeled back to reveal internal organs. A lot of blood had soaked into the living room carpet. There were footprints in the blood, but obscure ones.
Dr. Julius Nift, the obnoxious little ME, looked up at Quinn and said, “Where’s Pearl?”
“Doing other things,” Quinn said. “She’ll be along later. I’ll tell her you missed her.”
Nift smiled. “I do wish you would.” He loved to get under Pearl’s skin and seemed sincere in lamenting her absence.
There were half a dozen radio cars parked outside, and CSU techs were in the other rooms, already finished in this one.
“Why did you call me?” Quinn asked Renz.
Renz was wearing his full police commissioner’s uniform today. There must be a ceremony scheduled. A bead of sweat escaped from his hat and tracked down his forehead. Renz noticed Quinn studying him.
“Funeral today,” Renz explained. “Detective Norman Land.”
Land had been killed while pursuing a burglar in the Garment District last week. “One of the good ones,” Quinn said.
He looked again at the dead woman. She’d been young, in her twenties. There was the usual duct tape plastered over her mouth, distorted by her attempts to scream.
Her eyelids had been removed, giving her a startled expression that Quinn knew he would never forget.
“Why did you call me?” he asked again.
“Because it’s obvious we’ve got a serial killer here. This is not a good time for that to be happenin
g. My special review and reappointment are coming up next month.”
Renz had gotten into trouble over some missing drug raid money. Quinn thought he probably was innocent. Not that Harley Renz had any principles; there simply hadn’t been enough money involved to interest him. The shameless, conniving Renz was an expert when it came to calculating the risk-to-gain ratio.
“She bleed to death?” he asked Nift.
Nift, still squatting next to the corpse and his black bag of instruments, managed a slight shrug. “Maybe. My guess is she died of shock. She was alive when he cut off her eyelids. Probably when he gutted her.”
“Any sign of sexual activity?”
“Doubt it, but I’ll know more when I get her to the morgue.”
“So what do you know for sure?”
“That’s an unfair question.”
“I don’t care.”
“She was cut with a serrated blade,” Nift said. “Sawed. It also had a sharp point with which to make the initial opening. Looks like the killer wore something over his feet, maybe surgical slip-ons, judging by the footprints. He was prepared for the large amount of blood.”
“From experience,” Renz said, looking meaningfully at Quinn. He knew Quinn wasn’t yet committed to the serial killer assumption. There were no such previous murders in New York, but the manner and ritual of this one strongly suggested there would be more.
“Same knife used to remove her eyelids?” Quinn asked Nift.
“Looks that way. It’s not a neat job. But the eviscerating job is fairly neat.”
“Like he’s a medical doctor?”
“No. Like he’s done it before.”
“Killer clean up in the bathroom?” Quinn asked.
Nift nodded.
Quinn walked down a short hall to the small bathroom. There were signs of blood there, but all of it was smeared and he’d bet it all belonged to the victim. He had run the shower, but it didn’t look as if he’d taken a full shower. Too smart to leave hair in the drain. This killer was careful.
Quinn returned to the living room.